R-Infra plans four JVs with Shanghai Electric

The services to be offered in the domains of technical and design support, operations and maintenance, after-sales services and erection of power equipment would involve a combined investment of $400-600 million and generate up to 400 jobs, said a company official.

"India plans to add 78,000 mw of generation capacity in the next five years. We lack expertise and qualified manpower to address the issues related to setting up and running of power plants.

The joint ventures are aimed at addressing these issues. Further, we look at these JVs as potential new business opportunity for R-linfra," said the official.

Details of the stake to be taken by Reliance-ADAG in the joint ventures are still not known. It is estimated that the Chinese power equipment manufacturers have bagged orders for more than 20 per cent or about 16,000 mw of the new thermal power projects coming up in India.

According to an R-Infra official, the Chinese companies follow a different technical style and design for erection of power plants. Skilled workers and experts from China are required to set up power plants and for their maintenance, he added.

R-Infra already has a close working relationship with Shanghai Electric, which supplied equipments for the 500-mw Dahanu thermal power project and the recently commissioned Yamuna Nagar project. Analysts said that the move could also help to alleviate the concerns related to the quality and after-sales support by Chinese manufacturers supplying comparatively cheaper equipments.

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has already set up a technical committee to verify the quality and suitability in Indian conditions of the equipments supplied by the Chinese companies.